morons on parade: performative-nonsense peacocks and shouty wrestling coaches

your Republican House of Representatives

right now, there are about 55 people in America who are having the worst weekend of their lives.

imagine you’re one of them. you’re at home, trying desperately to relax, and your phone rings. you sigh, because on the other end is a certain shouty half-dressed degenerate wrestling coach. you can hear the screaming before you can even get the phone to your ear.

“god damn it, you fucking fuck, you better fucking vote for me. I will make your life miserable. I will come to your house. I will fuck you up. I will eat your fucking face. that’s right, your face. fuck you, you fucking fuck, I will make you wish you never fucking met me.”

you hang up the phone. it starts ringing again.

why is this happening to you? because you are one of the 55 House Republicans who won’t vote for Jim Jordan to be Speaker of the House.

Jimmy Jords has a problem. he wants to be Speaker of the House, but he doesn’t have the votes.

But on a second ballot asking simply whether G.O.P. lawmakers would support the Ohio Republican if the speaker nomination went to the floor, 55 still said no.

about 18 of the 55 holdouts have a very good reason for not voting for Jordan — it would be political suicide. these Reps are from swing districts and they absolutely do not want to have to explain to their constituents why they gave the Speaker’s gavel to a subpoena-defying insurrectionist who begged for a pardon after unsuccessfully trying to overthrow his own government.

but Shouty Gym has a cunning plan. he’s going get right up in their faces and scream at them until they fold.

right now, he’s threatening to primary anyone who won’t vote for him.

wait, did I say it was cunning plan? what I meant to say is that it’s one of the stupidest fucking plans in the entire history of stupid fucking plans.

it’s classic Republican thinking: solve your immediate problem while destroying your future.

let’s say that Jordan’s threats are sucessful, he gets the holdouts to vote for him, and becomes Speaker. yay, Jim.

but what happens a year from now, during the 2024 election? the 18 swing district Republicans lose to Democratic challengers. the Republicans lose the House. Gym loses his job.

let’s say that Jim can’t win over the holdouts, and he makes good on his threat to primary them with even loonier MAGA candidates. the MAGA candidates win their primaries — but they’re in swing districts, which makes them unelectable. the Republicans lose the House.

this isn’t idle speculation, we’ve seen unelectable MAGA candidates lose one swing district election after another.

Jim Jordan is willing to blow up the Republican future just so he can spend the next 13 months as Gavel Asshole.

ace job, Gym. keep up the good work. now get back to your phone calls.

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can we talk for a moment about this idiot?

this man is not an Israeli soldier. but you might be fooled into thinking he’s one, because he’s wearing an IDF uniform.

meet Brian Mast, Republican Representative from the great state of Floriduh. he’s not an Israeli. he’s never been a member of the Israeli military. he’s not even Jewish.

Brian’s a Christian from Grand Rapids, Michigan. he is a US military veteran, but the closest that he’s come to the IDF is the twelve days he spent as a non-combat volunteer, packing medical supplies.

but lately he’s been showing up in Congress in full Israeli military garb. you see, Brian is making a point — and that point is: I’m a performative-nonsense nitwit who loves doing cheap political stunts in order to get my face on TV.

what is it about House Republicans and their love of dressing up like fucking clowns?

yesterday we discussed to death Nancy Mace’s fondness for identifying herself as an adulteress.

but what in the actual fuck is this?

here’s Wyoming Republican Harriet Hageman, grinning like a loon while carrying a rope around the halls of Congress. why? who knows? who cares? it’s just more performative-nonsense ass-hattery.

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meanwhile, Former President Ratbrain continues to deteriorate. yesterday, he posted this to his crappy app:

“but remember, Republicans eat their young. they really do, they eat their young. terrible statement, but it’s true.”

no, it’s not a terrible statement — it’s a super fucking hilarious statement.

again, you have to ask — does Trump’s staff hate him?

they clearly must despise the rotting old gasbag. why else would they let him beclown himself like this?

was there not one big strong man with tears in his eyes brave enough to say “Mr. Trump, sir, the phrase is ‘eat their own’ — you need to record this again.”

I guess not. nobody wants a ketchup bottle thrown at their head.

carry on, sir, great stuff. no notes.

folks, a word on a different subject before I let you go: we’re doing some quarterly fundraising at my other venture, The Smirking Chimp. I’m leery of even mentioning it because if you’re one of the people paying to support my own writing here, you’re already doing god’s work and you’re already doing more than enough to help out. but if you’ve got five dollars that you absolutely wouldn’t miss and you do feel like supporting the Chimp, well, that just makes you twice the hero. the donation link is here, or you can go straight to paypal if you need no further convincing. and if you don’t care to donate, that’s totally cool, too, and we will not speak of this again. in fact, we never had this conversation. thanks for listening and that’s it from me for now.